The Shocking Reason This Hollywood Legend Won't Have a Funeral After Her Recent Death

Hollywood legend Doris Day didn't want her death to be celebrated, and she won't be having any kind of funeral. The actress, who died on Monday, May 13, was 97 at the time of her death.

Her manager said that Day made her wishes very clear in her will. Bob Bashara, who was also her close friend, told PEOPLE that there will be “No funeral, no memorial and no [grave] marker."

He also revealed that Day didn’t “like to talk about” a prospective funeral or memorial. It also appears that Day, who was raised Catholic and then became a Christian scientist, was no longer religious. According to her manager, she stopped being attached to organized religion after her husband Martin Melcher passed away in 1968. That may be why she was less likely to want a funeral.

He continued, “She didn’t like death, and she couldn’t be with her animals if they had to be put down. She had difficulty accepting death.”

“I’d say we need to provide for her dogs [after she died], and she’d say, ‘I don’t want to think about it’ and she said, ‘Well, you just take care of them,'” recalls Bashara. “She had several when her will was written, and she wanted to be sure they were taken care of. She didn’t like to talk about the dogs dying.”

In addition to being an actress, Day was an animal lover and advocate for good treatment of animals.

Bashara says he remains unsure as to why Day was reticent about having a funeral, but he says, “I think it was because she was a very shy person.”

He continued, “She never let her celebrity affect her and who she was, and she was always the little girl from Cincinnati who was extraordinarily talented and went out in the world and did what she loved to do despite herself. She was guileless, and I had discussions with her about how popular she was, and she would say, ‘I don’t understand it’ about why she was so loved.”

“She knew her fans loved her from all the letters, and that meant a lot to her,” he adds.

Day's estate will be donated to charity. The goal is to keep her Doris Day Animal Foundation, which she created in 1978, going.